The Worst Thing
by Iris Messenger
Summary: The worst thing Victoria can do to Bella or Edward. Several related one-shots.AU. Eclipse. Oh God. Is this what it feels like when your heart is breaking?
1. Bella's Pain

**AU, Eclipse. This is my projection of the worst thing Victoria could have done to Bella and Edward. Three related one-shots. Complete.**

Oh God.

Is this what it feels like when your heart is breaking?

Victoria looked up from the pyre she was building and smiled at me, a friendly, reasonable expression. Then she tossed up Edwards's perfect head and set it alight. The smoke smelled thick and too sweet.

Seth lay dead a few feet away, but I had eyes only for the mountain of flames that Edward had become.

I couldn't scream, couldn't cry, couldn't feel anything except denial. He was all right. He _had_ to be.

Riley crouched in front of me, obviously restraining himself, to make sure I wouldn't pass. But I couldn't move, I was frozen to the wall of sheer rock, my hand cramped around the rock that hadn't been enough. The faint pinprick of blood I'd drawn was driving Riley half crazy.

Come on then. Bite me. Kill me.

I don't want to live anymore.

The words I'd thought that day when Edward left, they came back to me now.

_Love. Life. Meaning. Over._

Go ahead Victoria. Kill me, if Riley won't do it … I'll _welcome_ death, pain, anything to get rid of this terrible numbness that hurts more than anything I've ever even imagined.

Please.

Just get it over with. I want oblivion. I want to see Edward again.

"How does it feel?" Victoria was very close to me, her eyes bright with the recent fight. Her voice, high, girlish, innocent, had a tone of kindly curiosity.

"Tell me, Bella. What are you feeling, now that your mate is dead? Would you like to die too?"

I looked her straight in the eye. "Get it over with." I said in a raw voice, thick with unshed tears. There was nothing, _nothing_ she could do to me anymore. She'd already done it. The worst was over.

"No, Bella. I don't think I will. You see, I've got to live out eternity without James. I think it's fair that you do to." Her voice was gentle, understanding.

I looked at her with wide eyes, unaware that I was hyperventilating and that the steady ripping groan was coming from _me._

Then I realized what she meant.

Victoria took in my horror struck expression with a delighted smile.

"No." I mouthed dryly. She giggled. "Yes, Bella. I was going to kill you, but now—well. This is _so_ much more fun."

Then she slung herself into a crouch that was all too familiar. All traces of her kind expression were gone in instant, swallowed by a terrifying snarl.

"And before you go," Victoria panted, baring her teeth. "I'll make sure you're hurt as much as I can."

Then she sprung, slamming me between the rock and her body. My ribs were crushed, I couldn't breath, couldn't scream out with the agony that wracked my body. I only lasted a few more broken bones before I blacked out, battered into unconsciousness.

I was dying when I woke up next. And her, Victoria, she was always there to gloat and enjoy every moment of my pain.

There are no words do describe it, that terrible empty hole that doesn't get better, that doesn't vary — except to get worse.

"Yes, it hurts." Victoria crooned when I was finally transformed, curled up on the damp forest floor in a fetal position, whimpering with pain and loss and bloodlust.

Then she left me to live eternity alone.

The numbness.

The day-after-day-after-day never ending pain that blurred everything, even time.

Victoria had damned my soul, forced me into this unbreakable body, gotten her revenge.

I wondered, did she feel any better?

Was her life as meaningless and utterly lonely as mine was?

My gift, when I discovered it, was a final curse from her. I took other people's happiness and joy, leaving them curled up in miserable balls, while I felt the fleeting moments of joy. And I couldn't control it.

I was a monster.

Death is nothing to what I've been through.

I was out of control, a newborn — just like they had all warned me. I killed all too often.

Do you know what it's like to feel another person's blood on your hands? Do you know what it's like to kill?

I do.


	2. Victoria's Pain

**This is the same scenario in Victoria's POV.**

Oh God.

Is this what it feels like when your heart is breaking?

I begged him not to go. I tried _everything._ Who would have thought to find me on my knees for a man? But my kind, we did not change, we did not forget. I loved James with every fiber of my being, I always would.

I knew he would not come back if he chased that human to Phoenix.

When they killed him, I felt it. And as I was empty and dying inside, I knew I'd survive.

I remembered when he left, just minutes before he started tracking that girl. He pulled me close and trailed his lips over my throat, my ear, my nose. Finally he kissed my lips with a passion that made my frigid body feel full of fire.

"I'll come back, Victoria." He'd promised. "I'll find you." And then he'd smiled at me in that arrogant way he used to, and left.

"Don't go." I whispered. "I love you."

I knew he would not come back if he chased that human in Phoenix.

Eternity without him.

Without James.

The love of my existence.

I'd thrown off the two females long ago; I had a knack for that. But the satisfaction that made me smile after tricking a pursuer was lost in the waves of loss that threatened to throw me over the edge. With James I'd had warmth, affection for the first time in my life. Now I was as cold as all of my kind are. My long dead heart, kept beating by James, iced over.

I needed a purpose, something to make me strong and able to live through everything…so I vowed revenge.

Laurent told me what happened, he told me what the Cullen's told him. That the big brother and the slighter one had struck the final blows. But it was Edward Cullen's fault. I wouldn't kill him though.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

A mate for a mate.

I'd get her, that appetizing human he loved so much. And then I'd kill her, and Edward Cullen would have an eternity to live with knowing it was _his fault_ she was dead.

It was triumph when I killed Edward. I had meant for it to be his human, but now…Well, it was her fault too that James was dead. So she'll live an eternity without him, just as I will.

It was so satisfying to break her, and then to kill her.

"How does it feel?" I'd asked Isabella, as she stood there pale and delicate and utterly heartbroken. I smiled, though inside I was seething. Why was I just as empty as before? Why couldn't I feel anything but pain?

_Why_?

I made the bite just a graze on her foot, so it was the smallest amount of venom and the farthest from her heart. I wanted Isabella Swan's last days a human to be prolonged and painful. To my intense satisfaction, they were.

Killing Isabella Swan hasn't helped _anything!_ I'm still barely holding on to reason, reminding myself to go on.

Life is meaningless without a way to measure time.

I'd measured the days in kisses, the weeks in small moments of tenderness, the months in all those things James and I had shared. Without him, I was nothing. Without him, there _was_ no time.

It was enough to make me wish I were human, just so I could kill myself. If the werewolves had found me after I disposed of Edward and changed Bella—if the Cullen's had gotten there just a few moments quicker … I would have almost _welcomed_ death.

Death is nothing to what I've been through.

Do you know what it's like to kill and enjoy it?

I do.


	3. Edward's Pain

**This is an alternate version of events that has nothing to do with what just happened. If Victoria killed Bella instead of Edward.**

Oh God.

Is this what it feels like when your heart is breaking?

Bella's perfect form lay white and still, a bleeding hole in her chest where Victoria had rammed through her heart. Why was it that _my _chest felt like it was the one that had been rammed?

"Bella NO!" I could hear myself screaming her name over and over, and that she-demon stood there with a smirk and _laughed._ Why did she live and my Bella die?

_Jacob, calm down! Don't do anything stupid. _

_BELLA! Oh god, no no no no no! If I'd stayed — NO!_

_James, my love, did you see that? You're avenged!_

Hand on her face, frantically trying to make myself believe that she wasn't dead, that any moment her eyes would flutter open and she'd whisper my name. But her heart—

_Look at his face, it's _killing_ him!_

Her heart isn't beating. The world is silent, because the drum that kept time is gone.

"It hurts doesn't it?" She breathed in my ear, a lock of orange hair brushing my cheek. Before I could swipe she danced out of reach, a mad expression of joy on her face.

_Not Bella! Jacob, get a hold of yourself. _

_Sam, I can't — please — just — BELLA!_

_This is going to kill Jake, oh Bella._

_I want him to suffer as much as I did. I want him to wallow in the agony — after all, it's his fault._

No.

"Please, Bella." I whispered. "Don't be gone."

But she was. Isabella Swan graced the world no more, and it was my fault.

"If you hadn't been foolish, and selfish, enough to bring her into your world and think she could survive, dear Bella would be very much alive right now. Pity, she was a pretty thing — for a human." Victoria crooned in her high, sweet voice.

I couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but sit there and listen to her sadistic accusations, all of them true. If I'd changed her earlier, given her what she wanted with no stupid bargains. It was my fault.

Without warning I lashed out at her, but with a giggle she twirled away, graceful as any ballerina. But I didn't want grace; I wanted the girl that fell at every chance, tripped on flat surfaces. I attacked her with everything I had, and she still evaded me.

_And I'll just be going to the right, hold on, left. _

_Feint there, feint here, I can beat you. I'll have you begging for mercy._

_Sam, send someone up, we need help._

Finally we stopped, panting. Victoria gave one last laugh and she was gone, leaving me with my sorrow.

Sorrow.

That word didn't do the all-encompassing pain justice.

I picked up her mangled body, and it was cold. The smell of her blood repulsed me now, because it stood for her death.

Pressing my lips to her bloody forehead I carried her down to my family.

_The werewolves are going berserk over something. _

_Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no._

_We need Edward to tell us what's happened. _

_Oh no. Guys smell it. Bella's hurt. She's hurt badly. Carlisle, get your stuff._

"She's dead." I wrenched out the words, coming into sight. Alice gasped and started shaking her head.

_Not Bella. _

_Edward, don't do anything stupid. _

_What are we going to tell Charlie. _

_Oh Bella._

"And Victoria." Carlisle asked in a strange voice.

"Gone. She was too quick." It killed me again and again to hold her in my arms, face the thoughts and concern of my family. Jasper came up to me, and didn't try to calm me down. Just sat down and pulled me next to him.

_I know how you feel._

"It—she—I should have known." I burst out, stroking the hair from her still face. My family stood in a circle around us, varying expressions of denial and pain and guilt on their faces. In between Alice and Carlisle stood Jacob. He nosed his way forward and licked her forehead gently.

_It's not your fault, bloodsuc—Edward._

"Dammit, Jacob! It _is _my fault." I burst out.

I left soon afterward, unable to live with people who'd known her. Their thoughts never strayed far from the human girl we'd all loved.

Day after day, life was meaningless. Bella had taken my heart wherever she had gone. I didn't kill myself, I'd promised her that, and I'd caused enough pain without hurting my family that way.

Death is nothing to what I've been through.

Do you know what it feels like to know you've killed your love?

I do.


End file.
